Avtac paced the living room outside Savina's bedroom while a cluster of aides spoke with hushed voices. Zecha waited by a window, staring out at the city, her face drawn as if she hadn't slept the entire night.
Suddenly the outer door of the suite swung open and Captain Lesi of the Calanya escort strode into the room.
"Is there a problem in the Calanya?" Avtac asked.
Lesi bowed to her. "The Calani Sevtar wishes to be with Manager Miesa."
Avtac could imagine the consequences of letting a high-strung Calani into the birthing room "Tell him no."
"He's already here, ma'am. I could barely convince him to wait in the alcove."
The lack of discipline at Miesa appalled Avtac. Savina indulged this Fourth Level far too much. "Take him back."
The Miesa Senior Aide came over to them. "Savina wants him with her, ma'am."
That gave Avtac pause. "She spoke to you about this?"
"I think she and Sevtar just made the decision."
"But did she give orders?" Avtac said.
It was a moment before the Senior answered. "Not yet."
"Yet?" Avtac wished the woman would be more specific. "Then she told you she intended to give orders on the subject."
"No," the Senior admitted. "But she did intend to."
Avtac appraised the Senior. Was she operating on her own agenda or did she truly believe Savina wanted this excitable Calani hovering around while she labored? Avtac had never asked for Garith in the five times she had given birth. His presence would have been an intrusion.
A nurse opened the door of Savina's bedroom. "Manager Varz?"
Avtac went over to him. "How is Savina?"
"She's had several convulsions, we aren't sure why. And the baby is in the wrong position." Quietly he said, "Behz doesn't know if either she or the baby will live."
No, Avtac thought. Savina, be strong. "Has she asked for the baby's father?"
The nurse shook his head. "She sleeps between contractions and isn't coherent during them."
"Do you think it would help her to have him come in?"
The nurse spread his hands. "We don't know."
Avtac suspected that if Savina had said nothing about the matter this far into her pregnancy, she didn't want Sevtar in there. Unfortunately, with Savina it was difficult to tell; you could never be sure what was going on in her odd, albeit engaging, mind. Nor was promptness one of her strong points.
Avtac went to the window where Zecha stood. As the captain turned to her, Avtac was surprised by the extensive lines of fatigue on her face.
"You knew this man Sevtar at Haka," Avtac said.
"He isn't stable," Zecha said. "Let him in there and you could have a disaster."
Avtac motioned for the Calanya captain. When Lesi came over, Avtac said, "Do you believe Sevtar might lose control of himself in the birthing room?"
"Not at all," Lesi said.
"He never behaves in an erratic manner?"
The Miesa captain hesitated.
"Answer with care," Avtac said. "Your Manager's life could depend on what you say."
Lesi exhaled. "I can't guarantee he'll do nothing unexpected."
The Miesa Senior Aide joined them in time to hear Lesi's comment. "Sevtar is steadier than a rock," the Senior said.
A guard opened the outer door of the suite. "Captain Lesi? I don't know how much longer he's going to wait."
"Bring him," the Senior said.
Avtac spoke to the guard. "You will do nothing until you have my permission."
The guard hesitated, looking from Avtac to the Senior. Then she said, "Yhee, ma' am," to Avtac.
Zecha drew Avtac to one side. "I would think before you let him in there. It's well—known what you have to gain if Savina Miesa dies."
Avtac had. no wish to see Savina die. The Miesa Manager was one of the few people she actually liked. Besides, if she appeared to seek Savina's death, the political ramifications would be ugly. On the other hand, if she refused the Fourth Level and it turned out Savina had actually wanted him there, the consequences could be just as serious.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of Zecha's face. She wiped it away with a distracted motion.
"Are you sick?" Avtac asked.
"It's the tension. Can't you feel" it? Zecha pressed the heels of her palms against her temples. "It's like being in a mulch compactor."
Avtac frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Zecha's face took on an odd expression, as if she had closed and shuttered herself. "It's nothing."
"Manager Varz." Captain Lesi stepped over to them. "We need to decide."
Avtac considered her, then turned to Zecha. "I need your best opinion, Captain. One untainted by anger."
Zecha stiffened and Avtac saw that her implication wasn't lost on the captain If the wrong decision was made, it would reflect on Zecha now as well.
Zecha rubbed her temples, her face drawn. With complete certainty she said, "Manager Miesa wants him with her."
Kelric's awareness of the foyer faded as he concentrated on the force being born in the other room. His daughter reacted in instinct, innocent of the knowledge her miraculous power could kill. Kelric buffered Savina, easing the onslaught, but holding his link with her proved difficult from two rooms away.
The foyer door opened, framing Captain Lesi in its archway. She said, simply, "I will take you to Manager Miesa."
Somehow, through his tension, he managed to nod. He wound the Talha around his face and pulled up the cowl of his robe, secluding himself from watching eyes so the covetous reactions of people to his appearance wouldn't disrupt his concentration.
As soon as he was inside Savina's bedroom, he slipped off his robe and Talha and went to the bed, standing back from the gathered medics. Savina strained with another contraction and his mind reeled with the intensity of her effort. He deepened his concentration, spurring her brain to produce chemicals that blocked its pain receptors.
After the contraction finished, Savina dropped back on the bed. At first he thought she had passed out,but then she opened her eyes. "Sevtar," she whispered. "Come help. Please."
When Kelric started toward her, Behz laid her hand on his arm. "Be careful."
He swallowed and nodded. They helped him to kneel on the bed behind Savina and showed him how to support her during the contractions. He was so close to her now that both she and the baby glowed in his mind.
Again and again Savina strained in his arms, her body wrung with her exertions. The day ground into night, blending into a haze of exhaustion. As her strength ebbed their child's mind began to fade. Kelric refused to admit what was happening that his wife and daughter were dying in his arms. He poured his support into Savina, barely even realizing he was all now that kept her and their child alive. She had stopped thinking, giving all her remaining strength over to the agonized labor.
Suddenly Behz cried, "She's coming!"
Kelric heard through a daze With his consciousness focused inward the room had blurred around him and he could no longer see.
Suddenly Savina screamed, her body going rigid as if she were struggling back from the threshold of death for one final, gargantuan effort.
Then a baby wailed.
With a curiously gentle sigh, Savina sagged in his arms. Incredibly, for the first time in hours, perhaps even days, she looked up with recognition. Her voice was a whisper. "She lived because of you."
Tears ran down his face. "And you."
"I'm so tired . . ."
"Savina." He rasped her name. "Savina, don't."
She smiled, her face blurred in the room's dimmed light. "I love you, Sevtar."
Then her eyes closed.
30
The Tower of Souls
The torch on the wall flickered, gilding the corridor with antique light. Avtac walked in silence. At the end of the hall she stopped before an archway and stood with her palm resting against the door, the only concession to her crushing grief she would ever reve
al. Then she unlocked the door and entered the room where a legend waited.
He was sitting in a window seat, staring out at Miesa far below the tower. Then he turned—and she saw that the legends of his beauty were indeed false. The reality of him was not less, as she had expected; it was more, far more. His flaw less face, the symmetry of his form, the beauty of his skin: he was perfect. Utterly perfect.
Instead of the midnight-blue cloak of mourning, for some reason he wore black: boots, trousers, shirt, vest—all black. The only color came from the gold of his wrist guards glinting under the edge of his cliffs.
So. This was the man who had destroyed an Estate.
Sevtar turned away from her and stared out the window at Miesa again. No, not Miesa. Varz. It was hers now, all of it, and a Fifth Level, as well. But it came at a bitter price.
Softly she said, "Your daughter survived, Sevtar."
He looked back at her, for the first time showing a spark of life. Avtac wondered at his reaction. Calani such as he were another species, erratic in emotion and thought. Still, perhaps .it would be kind to let him see the infant.
Within moments after she sent for the child, a nurse appeared with a small bundle wrapped in blankets. When Avtac nodded, the youth approached Sevtar and bowed. Then he offered Sevtar the bundle.
The transformation that came over Sevtar astounded Avtac. He cradled the tiny infant in his massive hold with a tenderness incongruous to his reputation. Then he murmured a name.
The nurse jerked back and Avtac motioned for him to leave. Despite the jolt of hearing Sevtar break his Oath, Avtac understood his lapse. It wasn't his fault men of great beauty lacked moral strength. Today he needed to mourn. She would leave Calanya discipline for another time.
She wondered about the name he spoke. Rohka. Had he and Savina picked it for their daughter? She sat next to him and spoke gently. "Rohka will have the best care we can offer."
Sevtar looked as if he were trying to answer. But words failed him. Instead he bent his head over the child and repeated her name in his husky accent, making it sound like Roca. As a tear ran down his face, he added words that made no sense:
"No longer am I the littlest Rhon child."
Varz stood alone, high in the mountains, ancient and immutable, a solitary garrison with the grandeur of the Teotecs stretching away on all sides as far as a hawk could fly. The riders landed on the airfield in the icy shadows of dusk. Cowled and hidden in robes, surrounded by their escorts, Kelric and Hayl moved across the frozen tarmac like ghosts.
They gave their Oath at Night's Midhour in the Hall of Souls, a place of ebony and onyx spaces, hung with sable curtains, Kelric stood alone, encircled by an ebony rail on an obsidian dais, his heart as dark as the hall where he swore loyalty to Varz. The words were dust in his mouth.
After he gave his Oath, Avtac Varz appeared from behind a curtain, a tall woman in ash robes. He watched numbly, uncaring that in moments she would make history.
She asked no questions as she placed the Akasi bands on his arms. "Sevtar Dahl Haka Bahvla Miesa Varz," she said. "You are now a Fifth Level Calani of Varz."
31
Switch: Black Onyx
Ixpar slid open the stained-glass doors of her suite and walked onto the patio. In a distant garden she saw Bahr at a table, intent on her dice. The gambler looked like a wild gypsy: huge hoop earrings, yellow scarf tied in her red curls, blue trousers, yellow shirt, and those spectacular red boots of hers. Nearby, her friend Rhab was bent over a potter's wheel, hard at work.
Ixpar smiled. They made quite a picture: the Quis Wizard who lived as a Calani and her Modernist friend who came to pay suit the same way a woman would court a Calani, though neither of them would admit Rhab was courting anyone. Jahlt would have had a fit.
Ixpar sometimes wondered why she had done it. Supporting Bahr in the full style of a Calani was no meager investment. The arrangement drew constant criticism from the Elders. But the gambler's unusual mind, brimming with its plethora of odd ideas, fascinated her. She wanted Bahr to play Quis with her Calanya and for that stratospheric privilege, Bahr would have to keep the Oath for the rest of her life.
A man appeared in another garden, his brown hair whipping in the breeze as he strode down a path. When he neared, Ixpar recognized him as Anthoni, one of her more promising Estate aides. He came over and bowed to her. "I have a message."
"From whom?" Ixpar asked.
"Skybird."
Ixpar motioned him into her living room, then closed the doors and pulled the curtains. "Who gave you the message?"
"A pilot. The name on the delivery sheet was Levi Karn."
"This pilot asked for your name before she spoke to you? Twice?" When Anthoni nodded, Ixpar said, "Who else knows of this?"
"No one I came straight here."
"Good. What did Levi tell you?"
"This: 'The skybird flew high and now roosts well. His nests are clean' "
Skybird. It was the code name for her agent Jevrin. The message meant he had established himself at Varz with a position on the CityGuard. Given Avtac's views on the unsuitability of men for the Guard, Ixpar hadn't been sure he would make it this far. But Avtac's inflexibility worked to Ixpar's advantage; the iron—hard Varz Manager was less likely to suspect a man as a spy, given it required numerous traits she associated only with women, including that he be discreet enough to keep his true identity out of the dice.
A considerable portion of Jevrin's training had gone into Quis, to ensure he didn't reveal himself. But he couldn't use the dice to send messages to Karn; no matter how well he secured his work, a Quis Wizard might still pick up the patterns.
"Was there anything else?" Ixpar asked.
Anthoni nodded. " 'The sun is extinguished.' "
"What?"
"That was the message. 'The sun is extinguished.' "
"Are you certain? You didn't hear it wrong?"
"I'm sure."
She took a breath. "Thank you, Anthoni. You've done well."
After Anthoni left, Ixpar sank into a chair. How could it be? The sun is extinguished.
Savina Miesa is dead.
If that were true, then Varz now owned Miesa. Ixpar's fist clenched as she thought of what else belonged to Varz.
Kelric.
32
Ravaged Tower
The days passed Kelric like ghosts, ten and then twenty, in dark, silent procession. Winter's blizzards raged outside, but he barely noticed. He lived in a universe of numb silence.
In such a large Calanya he had company even tonight, when he wandered through the common rooms after most of Varz slept. Two men conversed at a Quis table and another sat absorbed in solitaire. As always, each person he passed stopped what he was doing and nodded to him, silent and deferential.
Fifth Level. He felt abnormal. The other Calani treated him the way Outsiders treated all Calani. No one intruded on his solitude and he talked to no one. Even Avtac had the decency to leave him alone, despite the Akasi hands. He had finally, today, changed from the black of mourning into normal clothes, but what he wore made no difference. The shadows inside him remained.
The main common room was dark, except for a night lamp in one corner. Kelric tapped at Hayl's screen, but no one answered. As he turned to leave he heard a faint noise within. Crying? He hesitated, reluctant to trespass, yet knowing that were Hayl his own son he would try to help.
The crying came again, almost inaudible. So he went in. He found Hayl in a darkened alcove, lying on the rug among several cushions. Like most Miesans, the boy had never grown very tall; hidden in shadows he looked even younger than his fourteen years.
"Are you all right?" Kelric asked.
Hayl looked around with a start and then sat up. "Sevtar?"
"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to intrude. But I thought I heard crying. Can I help?"
"No." Then Hayl said, "Sevtar, wait. Stay."
Kelric sat on the rug. He couldn't bring himself to mention Savina, so instead he sai
d, "Is it Revi?"
Hayl nodded, wiping tears off his cheeks. "Do you know what my mother told me once? When I was a baby and Revi was five, I wouldn't go to sleep unless he carried me around the nursery in the Cooperative."
"Avtac probably didn't realize how close you two were."
"She knew. The Miesa Senior Aide told her." Hayl swallowed. "Manager Varz doesn't care. She just wanted the best of us and a good price for the rest." He wiped his palms on his trousers. "Someday I'll be a Third Level. At Haka. With Revi."
"Perhaps you will."
"You've been to Haka. Do you think Revi likes it there?"
"I did. The desert is beautiful."
"Tell me about it."
As they talked, Hayl's spirits recovered a bit. Although they skirted the subject of Savina's death, Kelric felt Hayl's grief and knew the boy understood his. It helped in some way, sharing their. silences about her.
When Kelric eventually returned to the main common room, he saw Qahotra, the Calanya captain, waiting by his suite with his "valets," Tak, Thek, Netak, and Katak. The Taks, as he called them. With diplomacy, or perhaps duplicity, Avtac chose to call these four of his guards "servants in honor of his position." Given that all four men carried guns, were larger even than Kelric, and obviously had martial-arts training, they didn't make convincing valets.
When Kelric saw what Qahotra carried, his heart leapt and he forgot the Taks. He strode over and stopped in front of her, accepting the blanket-swathed bundle she offered him. He cradled his daughter in his arms, gazing at her beloved face as he swayed slightly from side to side, rocking her.
When he finally glanced up, he saw Qahotra watching him with a smile. Even the Taks looked like they might actually crack their wooden faces with a pleasant expression.
"We'll be back in an hour," Qahotra said.
After the captain left, the Taks sat around a Quis table and played dice. Kelric settled into an armchair across the room, enfolding Roca in his arms, and murmured nonsense words. She watched him with wide blue eyes that someday would turn gray, gold, green, or violet, he had no idea which. She felt so small, so vulnerable. He hadn't realized fatherhood would come with such an intensity of response on his part.